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Italian giants looking to pounce for young French superstar

With a few players looking to leave Paris this summer, it is young 17-year-old Kingsley Coman that is a rumoured target for Italian side Juventus.

With Paris Saint-Germain’s €50 million move for Brazilian David Luiz from Chelsea completed this week, there is a lot of talk about what players will be leaving Paris in order for the club to balance the books this season, and not falling into the trap of failing to meet Financial Fair Play’s requirements again next year. One of the moves rumoured this weekend is the surprise move to let 17-year-old prospect Kingsley Coman leave to Juventus this summer report newspaper Le Parisien.

Although still very young the midfielder is very highly rated, not just within PSG, but within the French youth set-ups. The problem for Coman is that he has only featured in two of their league games this season, playing a total of 37 minutes during their title run.

Coman has still to sign his first professional contract for the French club, there is rumours that they have offered him a three-year contract this summer, but there is serious interest from Italian champions Juventus, and they want to take the youngster to Turin and give him more playing time for il Bianconeri.

It was meant to be the breakthrough season for Coman, he was included and played a significant part for PSG in the pre-season Trophée des Champions game against Bordeaux in Gabon, but Blanc never gave him that chance as PSG tried to keep their distance from challengers Monaco.

Most of Coman’s appearances this season have come in France’s fourth division. Playing in the CFA for PSG II, he made 15 starts this season, but failed to find the back of the net. It is important to remember how young Coman still is, at 17 to be playing at this level, a competition that is full of a mixture of part-time sides and second string sides from Ligue 1 and Ligue 2; it can be a competitive and physical league.

For Coman to impress at this level is an excellent indication of how talented a prospect he already is, and if he continues to develop he will likely become a very exciting first-team player. If Juventus can lure him to Italy now, we could be looking at a talent at the level of French international Paul Pogba. Now that would be a huge mistake for the Ligue 1 champions.

Andrew Gibney

Andrew Gibney started following France's Ligue 1 about 10 years ago and it is an obession that has stayed with him ever since.His writing career started as a hobby, but now he calls Lille, France his home and spends his weekend either watching Lille OSC or teams down in the fifth division of the French league pyramid, forever searching for the next Eden Hazard.A typical Glasweigan, he once walked 106 miles in seven days, from Sheffield to Lille, just to avoid paying for the Eurostar. Managing to talk his way into a few freebies from other clubs along the way.